THE BLOODSTAINED WHITE chess piece sat on the pitch-black sandalwood of the tea table like the white of an eye spiderwebbed with blood vessels, staring vacantly, eerily in all directions.
Gu Mang squashed the emotions that threatened to overwhelm him and picked up the chess piece. At first, he noticed nothing strange about it. But after a moment's examination, his pupils contracted, and he looked up in astonishment. "Zhenlong Chess Formation?"
"General Gu has learned much from his dealings with the Liao Kingdom. It took Sishu Terrace three full days to recognize this technique, but General Gu can tell at a glance. You are correct. This is one of the three great forbidden techniques…the Zhenlong Chess Formation."
The Zhenlong Chess Formation was a bloody magic passed down since ancient times. Its caster could refine black and white chess pieces from their own spiritual energy and use them to control any living thing in the world, be it a beast of the field or a bird of the air, a human, monster, immortal, or demon. As long as they were implanted with a chess piece, they would become puppets that carried out the wielder's bidding. But this sort of forbidden technique had a significant restriction: the spellcaster's cultivation level had to be extremely high. It cost terrific amounts of spiritual energy to refine a single chess piece; those who weren't at the level of a grandmaster couldn't begin to attempt it.
Even so, among the three forbidden techniques, the Zhenlong Chess Formation left the clearest trail. Compared to the Rebirth technique with its hundreds of differing tales and the near-mythical Space-Time Gate of Life and Death, the bloody storms stirred up by the Zhenlong Chess Formation had repeatedly stained the history of the cultivation world. Countless ambitious tyrants had scrabbled madly through the land to collect scraps of scrolls about this magic. Although no one could yet use it as described in the forbidden texts— single-handedly refining tens of thousands of black and white chess pieces and creating an immense army with a scattering of stones—it was not impossible. No one had succeeded in mastering the Zhenlong Chess Formation to reshape the world and dye the land red, but cultivators who could make a few dozen or hundred chess pieces did exist. And sometimes, to spark a mutiny or topple a ruling class, it was enough to control the most crucial person for a single moment.
Gu Mang's eyes glimmered. "A white Zhenlong chess piece…" He mumbled, repeating the words with trembling lips. "So…so Lu Zhanxing was under control of the white chess piece?!"
"Yes."
The word was faint, barely discernible, but it seemed to re-ignite the glow that had gone out in Gu Mang. "Does Your Imperial Majesty tell me these things so I can redress Zhanxing's injustice?" he cried. "I'll do anything—"
"General Gu." The emperor cut him off, pouring another cup of tea. "Calm yourself. Sit."
"But—"
"Trust us. We brought you here to tell you the truth in person. We will certainly not let Subject Lu endure injustice for nothing."
His words were ingeniously crafted. What did it mean to not let Subject Lu endure injustice for nothing? At first it sounded like he meant to exonerate Lu Zhanxing. But with a moment's thought, there was another possibility. He would ensure the injustice done to Lu Zhanxing was for a worthy cause, so that this deputy general's sacrifice would not be in vain.
A worthy sacrifice…was also not for nothing.
But how could Gu Mang in his current state detect any cunning meaning in the emperor's words? He blinked teary eyes, gazing into the emperor's sincere face. In the end, he lowered his head and sat back down.
How easy it was to set alight this bundle of firewood named Gu Mang. A moment ago he was icy and cold, as if he would never trust or serve anyone again. All it took was the tiniest spark for him to once more offer all he had to the emperor.
Mo Xi closed his eyes, lashes fluttering. The heat of Gu Mang's reignited hope seared the pain deeper into Mo Xi's heart. He already knew—in the end, nothing would go as Gu Mang wished. This bright flare was no more than the final wisp of light Gu Mang left in Chonghua.
"Does General Gu know how we discovered this chess piece?"
Gu Mang shook his head.
"After Lu Zhanxing was taken into custody, the jailer interrogated him. They found his condition extremely strange. He could give no details, and all his reactions were unnaturally delayed. We were suspicious, so we asked Zhou He to perform a magical vivisection." He tapped the white chess piece on the table. "They found this inside him."
The emperor continued, "Zhenlong Chess Formation isn't a technique easily managed; since antiquity, no one has truly mastered it. This white chess piece doesn't have the power of those recorded in the texts. In that regard, it's a failure—but it can still control people for a short period of time and make them do the spellcaster's bidding."
Pausing, the emperor looked up. "General Gu, you've always been clever. Surely we needn't tell you who would benefit most from Lu Zhanxing executing an envoy in those circumstances."
After a beat, Gu Mang murmured, "Liao."
"Correct. The Liao Kingdom."
The emperor plucked the white chess piece from the table and set it on its edge. With a flick of his fingers, the white chess piece was set spinning. He continued, staring at the chess piece. "The spellcaster's cultivation was not high enough to maintain steady control with the Zhenlong Chess Formation in the long term. Nor could he control cultivators with powerful spiritual energy like you or Xihe-jun. But your deputy general Lu Zhanxing was keeping watch over the army alone. He became their best target."
It was as if layers of gauze had been unwrapped to expose the bloody truth beneath. Gu Mang's fingertips shook as he watched that unassuming white chess piece.
"Imagine, General Gu. Consider Lu Zhanxing's temper, his birth, and his status… That he executed the envoy in a rage was only to be expected. If not for Zhou He's meticulous examination, this case would be closed, and no one would find it suspicious."
The white chess piece spun on the table like a top. Over this madly whirling Zhenlong piece, over this narrow wooden table, an emperor and his subject regarded each other.
"A single chess piece brought Chonghua's bravest army to ruin, destroyed Chonghua's growing hopes of reform, and reduced us to a puppet of those old, conservative nobles. As for you—you, and others like you, will never again have the means to free yourselves. Can you imagine what that looks like?"
"Imagine?" There was a long pause. Dazed, Gu Mang's voice, hoarse and weary, came out as a whisper. "Your Imperial Majesty, I've been living it." He pressed his fingers to his brow, burying his face in his hands. "Since the day I knelt in front of the court, begging you to raise those seventy thousand gravestones for my brothers… I already…already…"
He was like a traveler who had trudged so long in the desert he had reached the brink of death. This sudden hope had choked him. From his vantage point, Mo Xi could see Gu Mang in profile, bright tear tracks at the corners of those slender eyes like swallowtail butterflies.
The emperor was silent for a spell. "Subject Gu, we apologize."
Faced with an emperor who had once ridiculed and impugned them in court, how many subjects, aside from fawning sycophants, could forgive without resentment? If it were Murong Lian or Mo Xi who stood here, neither would so easily accept this apology.
But Gu Mang was a general born to poverty. Others could be aloof and heroic and bold, but him? He had too often smilingly pestered noble masters for his soldiers' pay. He had shamelessly attempted to cozy up to the other commanders as he could. It wasn't as though he was really so pathetic as to happily turn the other cheek when others slapped him.
It was because he had no choice.
He only had so much. He was responsible for the lives and dignity of his hundred thousand comrades. His pockets were empty, and he had no powerful backer; all he could pitifully offer up were his smiles. He could nod his head and bend his neck. What other option did he have?
Gu Mang swiped his thumbs across his lashes and looked up. The remaining candles flickered in the wind. Mo Xi could see his tears hadn't dried, yet he still strove to smile. It was a smile utterly shattered, yet also surpassingly strong.
"It's nothing," Gu Mang said. "Elder Zhou hadn't discovered the Zhenlong chess piece at the time, and Your Imperial Majesty didn't know the truth. Your Imperial Majesty's reprimand was justified." As he spoke again, he carefully watched the emperor's face, eyes bright with tears. "Dare I ask… How does Your Imperial Majesty plan to reverse Lu Zhanxing's sentence?"
But the emperor said nothing. In the silence, the white chess piece slowed and wobbled, weary and dispirited…
Outside, lightning flashed again; in its harsh light, the distant mountains looked like demons burst from the bowels of the earth. Thunder shook the skies, and the rain was like a waterfall tumbling down into the mortal world.
The emperor said, "General Gu, we're afraid that won't be possible."
Gu Mang's eyes were wide in the thunder and lightning. The white chess piece on the table finally exhausted itself. Struggling with the last of its momentum, it wheeled a few more pathetic circles before falling down and lying still.
Everything returned to silence. It was as if the river god Feng Yi was churning in the depths, towering waves about to break the water's surface, the gleam of scale-clad justice so close to rising from the abyss. But the wind stilled, and the water calmed. The river god sank back into the deep, cold waters, leaving those on the shore emptyhanded and hopeless.
"What?" Gu Mang tasted bitterness in his throat.
The emperor didn't answer directly. "Does General Gu know how Subject Lu fares inside the prison? Even now, he thinks executing the envoy at Phoenix Cry Mountain was a deed he did in a moment of impulse. He regrets it terribly. Zhou He said throughout the interrogation he kept asking to see you. He wanted to personally apologize for his recklessness."
Gu Mang closed his eyes. The hands fallen by his side twisted into fists, and the tendons by his temples protruded, his expression tortured.
The emperor stroked that pale white chess piece, caressing it with a fingertip. "Subject Lu doesn't know that those controlled by the white chess piece will do anything—they might commit any atrocity, whether it was murder, betrayal, or rape. They will believe they wanted to do it. He's no more than an innocent victim, the knife in the killer's hand. But he thinks he is the murderer."
Gu Mang stood up. He couldn't hold back, his voice shaking: "Then why didn't Your Imperial Majesty tell him?!"
"Why didn't we tell him?" The emperor seemed to ask this question to no one, or perhaps he was asking himself. He laughed softly, a little sorrowful. "Because we have a guilty conscience."
He turned to look out at the vast curtain of rain. It was a desolate sight, but his voice was bleaker still. "We don't know how to face him," the emperor murmured. "He isn't a rebellious subject; he is only a general who faced torment for Chonghua. Our heart is also made of flesh… We don't have the nerve to see him." He paused. "Do you think we don't wish to exonerate him, that we aren't willing to clear your reputations and give you justice? You're wrong. What ruler under the heavens would wish to disappoint his important subjects like this?"
The emperor rose and walked to the edge of the Golden Terrace, which seemed to waver in the wind and rain. Hands behind his back, he gazed into the endless night. He sighed. "General Gu, there's something you wouldn't believe, even if we told you on our knees." The emperor seemed to hesitate before speaking again. "In our eyes, your army is the most precious treasure we inherited from our imperial father. Regardless of what was offered in exchange—no matter how rich the land, how beautiful the woman—we would not have given you up. We never wanted to lose you all."